Egypt crisis: Google launches 'speak to tweet' service

Google has launched a special service to allow people in Egypt to send Twitter messages by dialling a phone number and leaving a voicemail, as internet access is cut off in the country amid anti-government protests.

A picture of President Hosni Mubarak burns during the protest in Cairo, EgyptPhoto: AFP/GETTY

6:30AM GMT 01 Feb 2011

"Like many people we've been glued to the news unfolding in Egypt and thinking of what we could do to help people on the ground," read a post on the search giant's official corporate blog.

The "speak to tweet" service, which Google said was developed with engineers from Twitter, allows people to dial a telephone number and leave a voicemail. The voicemail is automatically translated into a message that is sent on Twitter using the identifying tag#egypt, Google said.

Google said in the blog post, titled "Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard," that no internet connection is required to use the service. Google listed three phone numbers for people to call to use the service.

Internet social networking services like Twitter and Facebook have been important tools of communications for protesters in Egypt but internet acces has been hard to find.

The new service came as the last of Egypt's main internet service providers, the Noor Group, stopped working.

At about 11pm local time on Monday, the Noor Group became unreachable, said James Cowie, chief technology officer of Renesys, a US security firm. Renesys monitors massive directories of "routes," or set paths that define how web traffic moves from one place to another. The Noor Group's routes have disappeared, he said.

Mobile phone services were restored in Egypt starting on Saturday but text messaging services have been disrupted as protests continue.

Dozens of speak-to-tweet messages have been sent to Twitter already. The messages ranged from a few seconds to several minutes and featured people identifying themselves as Egyptians and describing the situations in various parts of the country.

"The government is spreading rumors of fear and of burglary and of violence," said one of the messages from an English speaker. "The only incidence of theft and burglary are done by the police themselves."

Google listed the following numbers for people to use the service: +16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855.